


The “Elementary” Years (1912-1914)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [228]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1910s, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Germany, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pie, RMS Titanic, Retirement
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 22:24:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11976285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: The shadow of war looms large – and it is not the only disaster that we face together. One woman gets a sinking feeling, another gets run over by a horse, and Sherlock uses his money to ensure that there is really only one Casdene.





	1. Down, Down, Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [princessgolux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessgolux/gifts).



1912

In the year which would see the start of National Insurance to pay for pensions for the elderly (someone nearby can stop sniggering _right this minute_!), our happy lives had seemed set to continue. Even if it took me nearly a full week to recover from the ‘celebrations’ that Sherlock had laid on for my sixtieth birthday that year, and it was the thirtieth of January before I went down to the village, only to find out that my ex-friends there had been running a book on how long it would be before I made it out of the cottage (the vicar won, but I think he must have had a 'tip' from upstairs). 

With all my concerns over my niece Emmeline, I was almost blind-sided when February brought a most unwelcome development with her brother-in-law, Sammy’s younger son Henry. Or, as he now apparently wished to be called, Heinrich; the teenage boy had taken up with a German lady called Helga, some six years his senior and a distant relative of King Otto of Bavaria, let alone at a time when war with Germany looked more and more certain. Doing something as foolish as that was – well, poor Sammy had totally flipped! He had promptly disinherited the lad, who had appealed to his mother in the certain knowledge that she would side with him, only find that he had been very wrong. The whole affair had left a bitter taste in my mouth, as I felt that I had all but lost a nephew.

At the end of March, Sherlock baked me an apple-pie. I was immediately wary; he only usually baked for either special occasions or bad news. There was no special occasion to hand, so it had to be the latter.

“Do you remember my brother Jimmy?” he asked.

Of course I did. The ex-soldier turned cult-leader, the man who had saved my and Sherlock's lives, and a psychic to boot. Honestly, one could not make my life up! I knew that he had given his half-brother a set of prophecies before parting, two of which had already come true in the two cases that Sherlock had solved during our retirement, the bogus laundry affair and the attempted framing of my son. I wondered if this was to do with Ben, who had met and married a Miss Valerie Gower last year.

Perhaps fortunately, it was not.

“Jimmy advised me that a certain chain of events was going to unfold this coming month”, Sherlock said carefully, “and that it would, unless stopped or diverted, end in the death of a family member. Someone from your family.”

“Who?” I managed, wishing for the rest of the pie to at least distract me a little. Sherlock handed me another slice (with cream), and I started on it at once. He let me finish before telling me who it was, and I nodded.

“What do you think?” he asked. 

I wondered just how the death was to be effected, and hoped that it would be a relatively merciful one. 

“We should do nothing”, I said eventually. “What will be, will be.”

I little knew then just how what would be was about to be,

+~+~+

It was just over two weeks later, and after a bright start to the day – for once it had been me leaving my mate sleeping off a sex coma, for which I felt quite proud – I strode(ish) down to the village to collect the morning paper. What with all the good food that Sherlock and I ate, I needed regular exercise.

_Apart from that!_

The village seemed unusually quiet and, rather oddly for that time on a Tuesday the shop was shut, a rack of newspapers and an honesty box on the wall outside. Puzzled, I deposited my coins and took a newspaper, reading the main headline. Then I froze.

I made it back to the house with impressive speed for someone now in their seventh decade of life, and burst into the front room to find Sherlock, now in his dressing-gown, sat on the couch. 

“The _“Titanic”_!” I almost shouted. “She has sunk! The ship that they called unsinkable.”

It only slowly dawned on me that Sherlock was holding a telegram, which must have come whilst I was out. He looked up at me, almost mournfully.

“This is from Luke”, he said. “It seems that amongst the passengers on the ship was a lady travelling first-class with a 'friend'. Her name was Mrs. Emmeline Watson.”

I stared at him in shock. Johnnie's wife, gone! But then…..

“She was with her lover, an American businessman”, Sherlock said carefully, clearly watching for any reaction from me. “A man called Mr. Terence Clinton. She had claimed that he was merely escorting her, but…..”

“Did he survive?” I ground out.

“No”, Sherlock said. “She stayed with him on the ship when they ran out of lifeboat space. Apparently they only had room for about half the number of people they were carrying. Over a thousand have gone to their deaths.”

I shuddered at such a horrible end, and almost without realizing it ran over to Sherlock, who wrapped his dressing-gown around us both and held me tight. I shivered, even the warmth of my personal human heater not enough for once to keep me warm.

“Poor Johnnie”, I sighed. “This will break him.

+~+~+

It very nearly did. Had he not had a family to support, I think that my nephew may have totally despaired of life. And Sammy was just as hard hit, having effectively lost his other son with Henry’s ‘Germanification’ barely a month before, and now seen his eldest son cuckolded and left a widower.

Poor Johnnie took some time to recover, and the rest of 1912 passed quietly as he did so. There was of course an inquiry into the sinking of the great liner, but popular opinion (with which I concurred) was that the whole thing was a whitewash, designed to shift blame onto the crew of the _“S.S. Californian”_ which had followed procedures by turning off its wireless set that fateful night, and whose crew had mistaken the flares sent up from the sinking great liner as celebratory ones. Captain Smith, who had ignored several ice-warnings and run his ship at full-speed into an ice-field, was not only completely exonerated but also honoured as a hero for going down with his ship. Hmm.

That year also saw the wettest August on record, and even more suffragette attacks that continued to do nothing for their cause. The autumn saw the start of the Balkan Wars in Europe, and it would be from that particular theatre that the war we had avoided thus far would break out two years hence. Generally this was a year to forget.


	2. The Other Casdene

1913

This year began with the dreadful news that Captain Scott's brave bid to become the first man to reach the South Pole had not only failed, but had cost the lives of him and his fellow adventurers. And I remember being horrified by an advertisement for the new Morris Oxford automobile (or car) which, it was claimed, could reach speeds of _fifty miles per hour_! I did not, as some blue-eyed genius claimed, go on about it _ad infinitum_. 

No I did not!

The summer of that year was of course remembered for the strange and tragic case of the suffragette Miss Emily Davison, who threw herself in front of the king's horse “Anmer” during the Derby. Quite why she sacrificed herself in this was remained a mystery; it only hardened attitudes against her cause, which had also not been helped by the frankly inexplicable decision of her fellow campaigners to start attacking pillar boxes of all things! And then there were the ongoing troubles over Ireland, with the Commons trying to pass Home Rule and the Lords repeatedly blocking it. What with one thing and another, I was glad that Sherlock and I were away from it all in our own little corner of England.

+~+~+

One of Sherlock's favourite spots to do his painting was about a mile up our little valley, where the road that passed through the village swung sharply left to cross the river at a ford. The old road had continued onwards to connect back to the main road, but now it ended in a large farm. One day we went there as per usual, and found that the farm was up for sale. The departing owners, a Mr. and Mrs. Saddleworth, told us that they were retiring, and might sell the place to some developers.

“Which could mean a whole new village”, Sherlock said, looking concerned. “There used to be a Casdene St. Andrew there in the Middles Ages before – the chapel still exists inside the farm - and like that village back in Rutlandshire, it too was depopulated to make way for sheep. Because of that, the council is much more likely to allow building on it again. They might even rebuild the through road, which would mean a lot more traffic in our own village.”

I was disappointed, because this was one of our favourite spots for Sherlock to paint, for me to watch him until he looked at me, smiled that smile and..... well, what else were barns for?

Fortunately there are advantages to having money and influence. Sherlock was able to buy the farm himself and limit the restored Casdene St. Andrew to two sets of terraced houses. Which, as things turned out, would be very useful.


	3. The Gathering Storm

1914

This fateful year saw the suffragettes continue to lose support; the British public did not for some strange reason take kindly to seeing paintings in their galleries attacked by mad women wielding meat cleavers, or to their seaside hotels and churches being set on fire 'to make a point'. The Irish problem seemed set for a resolution at least; the Lords accepted home rule with the proviso that the six mainly Protestant counties in the North of Ireland would be allowed a vote on their own future, with or not with their twenty-six southern neighbours. Unfortunately the law could not be passed before Europe's luck finally ran out. The war we had dodged twice thus far suddenly loomed large, and would bring us our final case, seven years after the last one. And as Sherlock's brother had rightly foretold, it would include me wanting to kill someone.

Why did he have to be right about everything? What was he, an angel or something?

+~+~+

Next, our final case.


End file.
